Danny de Armas describes First Baptist Church of Orlando, Florida: ‘We have transgender, LGBTQ, straight, single, married, divorced and cohabiting people. These same people attend, listen, serve, grow and give.’
Pastor Danny de Armas of First Baptist Orlando described the people who compose First Baptist Church of Orlando, Florida. Most of the list is typical evangelical elite bragging about the diversity of the people—these days it is a mark of pride for Elites to show how cosmopolitan their church is. However, some of the descriptions promoting the FBC Orlando’s inclusion of cohabitating couples, pro-choice voters, and illegal immigrants should cause concern for Christians. It is clear that de Armas and First Baptist Orland have made an idol of diversity.
De Armas said he wanted to describe First Orlando to a guest speaker. He wrote a description of the church in about 10 minutes that focuses on the diversity of the church.
“This is how I talk about you when you’re not around,” de Armas said. “We are a diverse, welcoming multicultural gathering of people.”
De Armas then goes on to describe all the different colors, ethnicities, and unique traits of the church. Then, de Armas describes some rather interesting characteristics of people who are members or attending First Baptist Orlando.
“We have transgender, LGBTQ, straight, single, married, divorced and cohabiting people,” de Armas said. “These same people attend, listen, serve, grow and give.”
Interesting.
Serve? How and in what way can people who identify as transgender, LGBTQ, and/or cohabitating serve the body of believers in a way that respects the church’s teachings on sex?
“We have Democrats, Republicans, independents, and non-registered people,” de Armas said.
Democrats? So, you have people who vote for pro-baby killing politicians? That seems, I don’t know, unchristian and someone who should be under church discipline instead of being highlighted as a mark of First Baptist Orlando’s diversity.
Then, de Armas champions that some churches violate Romans 13.
“We have documented and undocumented people,” de Armas said.
Documented and undocumented? That is just a nice way of saying we have legal aliens and illegal aliens, which means de Armas has church members who are in open violation of the rule of law.
“We have pro-life and pro-choice people,” de Armas said.
Let that sink in—de Armas is bragging that the church includes people who are confused about the sanctity of human life.
“We support the Blue and Black Lives Matter sitting together and serving together,” de Armas said. We have Trumpers and Never Trumpers. We have Biden supporters and Harris supporters.”
Again, all de Armas is doing is showing that his idol is diversity. Also, it is the wrong kind of diversity. It is a diversity that allows sinful conduct to participate in the church—he repeatedly makes clear that people who support ungodly things like abortion, Democrats, and the anti-family, Marxist Black Lives Matter organization are allowed to serve at First Baptist Church of Orlando, Florida.
If you want to know what is going wrong in evangelical churches in general and the Southern Baptist church in particular, then look no further than how many pastors make an idol of diversity.